tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81506792018-12-04T16:13:13.050-08:00The Emotional Pumpkin感情的な南瓜Richahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07004043249918240381noreply@blogger.comBlogger372125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8150679.post-1124861730923952832005-08-23T22:33:00.000-07:002005-08-23T22:35:30.923-07:00ALERT ALERT ALERTWow, that was quicker and easier than I thought. I have just finished importing all my Blogger posts into my <a href="http://blogs.ravasthi.name/tepumpkin/">new blog</a> and am, as of now, stopping updates of this blog. For new updates, please go to the new site.Richahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07004043249918240381noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8150679.post-1124821515755142312005-08-23T10:56:00.000-07:002005-08-23T11:25:15.763-07:00Everybody remain calm.So I've been tossing around an idea for some time, but didn't really have anyplace to go with it until my friend Arvind e-mailed me earlier this week. I'm thinking about defecting away from Blogger. Shocking, I know, but as good as it is for beginners and dilettantes (both of which I was not so long ago–and which you might argue I still am), Blogger definitely has its limitations: no search capability for the entire contents (including archives) of a blog, limited customizability, no integrated TrackBack functionality, no support for categories, etc. <br /><br />Also, since I now have my own domain, I thought it might be nice to integrate my web presences in one place. In order to publish a blog on my own domain, however, I'd need blog publishing software. The main platform for doing this, of course, is <a href="http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/">Movable Type</a>, but it is relatively expensive (read: not free), and therefore against the very spirit of blogging and the internet. Then there's <a href="http://www.lifli.com/Products/iBlog/main.htm">iBlog</a> for Mac, which is also not free. As for free publishing software there are <a href="http://www.noahgrey.com/greysoft/">Greymatter</a> and, the one my friend e-mailed me about, <a href="http://wordpress.org">WordPress</a>. I was pretty impressed with WordPress when I checked it out, and now I've installed it on my domain's server, which was insanely easy (they advertise that you can do it in under 5 minutes).<br /><br />Now for the hard part: making the decision. I'm all but ready to do it, except that I'd like to find some way of porting my old posts over, if possible. If not, it's not like I'll be deleting this blog anyway, so they won't disappear. Hmmm.Richahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07004043249918240381noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8150679.post-1124770716994621042005-08-22T21:16:00.000-07:002005-08-22T21:18:36.993-07:00Have you seen this?The new <a href="http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=1200">Flag button</a> on the Blogger bar? I'm not sure how I feel about it yet, but I am cautiously optimistic. It does not promote censorship, but does remove them from liability quite neatly and also provides a clever way for them to find spam blogs.Richahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07004043249918240381noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8150679.post-1124770050694713722005-08-22T20:58:00.000-07:002005-08-22T21:07:30.703-07:00Big pimpin'So I have got to share this with you. Did you know that Häagen-Dazs just came out with a light ice cream, with 1/2 the fat content of their regular ice cream? I had taste-tested a couple of flavors at a local festival a few months ago, and promptly forgotten about it. But when I was walking through the grocery store last week, I noticed that it had finally hit store shelves, so I got myself a couple of pints. One was <a href="http://www.haagen-dazs.com/seglid.do?productId=314">vanilla bean</a>, and the other <a href="http://www.haagen-dazs.com/seglid.do?productId=317">dulce de leche</a>. The former is really very good, but the latter is simply divine. Just amazing. Go out and get some right now. I mean it. Get in your car, go to the nearest grocery store or ice cream purveyor of your choice, and <em>get some</em>.Richahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07004043249918240381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8150679.post-1124305754029961192005-08-17T11:59:00.000-07:002005-08-17T12:11:13.990-07:00So my sister just gotthis nifty new tablet PC. You know the ones? Where you can write on them like a notebook and have the data digitized? And in an effort to christen it, she and I had a deep philosophical discussion over e-mail (she's the one in red):<br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6642/538/1600/tictac001.gif"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6642/538/320/tictac001.gif" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6642/538/1600/tictac002.gif"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6642/538/320/tictac002.gif" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6642/538/1600/tictac003.gif"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6642/538/320/tictac003.gif" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6642/538/1600/tictac004.gif"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6642/538/320/tictac004.gif" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6642/538/1600/tictac005.gif"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6642/538/320/tictac005.gif" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6642/538/1600/tictac006.gif"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6642/538/320/tictac006.gif" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6642/538/1600/tictac007.gif"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6642/538/320/tictac007.gif" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6642/538/1600/tictac008.gif"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6642/538/320/tictac008.gif" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6642/538/1600/tictac009.gif"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6642/538/320/tictac009.gif" border="0" alt="" /></a>Richahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07004043249918240381noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8150679.post-1124303509686517882005-08-17T11:16:00.000-07:002005-08-17T11:31:49.716-07:00BBCRWell, it's done. I've added <a href="http://blog-templates.ravasthi.name/bbcr.html">Blogger bar color recommendations</a> to my <a href="http://blog-templates.ravasthi.name">blog templates</a> site.Richahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07004043249918240381noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8150679.post-1124234373043065422005-08-16T16:15:00.000-07:002005-08-16T16:19:33.050-07:00D'you know what makes me completely INSANE?What makes me gnash my teeth and want to PULL OUT MY HAIR? #*@&%(*U@ people who leave their #$(*@)(* shopping carts in the middle of the grocery store parking lot. People who can't walk 10 feet to the @*#*!#U@*$ cart corral to drop it off, so that, you know, others can drive through, or god forbid, actually PARK in the parking lot? I was just walking out of the grocery store and some Mensa member had left a cart sitting right behind my rear bumper. !! My car was literally 10 feet from the cart corral. 10 feet! GRRAAARRRRRGGGGHH. Excuse me. I have to go punch something.Richahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07004043249918240381noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8150679.post-1124038372546432182005-08-14T09:44:00.000-07:002005-08-14T09:52:52.566-07:00I've been rejected!:( <a href="http://tolilacmoon.blogspot.com">Lilac Moon</a> is no longer using one of my templates. I am devastated. Well, OK, you caught me. I'm not <em>that</em> devastated. She is, after all, an artist, and the days that she would use someone else's work were bound to be numbered.<br /><br />Anyway, in other news, my OCD is manifesting itself again. I am giving serious thought to adding a section on my <a href="http://blog-templates.ravasthi.name">blog templates</a> site giving recommendations of blogger bar colors to use with each of my templates. Why? Because I'm unreasonably bothered by people using entirely the <em>wrong</em> blogger bar color choice with templates that would clearly go better with another color. What do you think? Should I do it?Richahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07004043249918240381noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8150679.post-1123632198020137572005-08-09T17:02:00.000-07:002005-08-09T17:03:28.446-07:00Pretty damn cool<a href="http://www.langorigami.com/">Computer-assisted origami</a>. (Thanks to Matt for the link.)Richahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07004043249918240381noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8150679.post-1123628031201268632005-08-09T15:46:00.000-07:002005-08-09T15:55:36.856-07:00On the perils of living in California: item #58It must be the newest thing in cheap marketing, but for the last year or so, I've been noticing that local businesses have been hiring people to stand along major thoroughfares waving signs and arrows advertising them: <em>Quizno's Subs</em>, <em>Computer Repair</em>, <em>Fresh Flowers</em>. Some of these sign-wavers really get into it; they'll bring headphones and some portable music device and be dancing around, waving their signs, waving to passing drivers. <br /><br />As a way of getting people's attention, it's both low tech and amazingly effective. It's also a dangerous distraction to drivers. This may have something to do with my unfortunate tendency to look with the entire car and not just my eyes, but I can't imagine that anything that suddenly takes a driver's attention off the road can be good for the overall accident level.Richahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07004043249918240381noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8150679.post-1123627597366882222005-08-09T15:44:00.000-07:002005-08-09T15:46:37.376-07:00On the perils of living in California: item #16I paid almost $40 for a tank of gas yesterday. For my 4-cylinder car. Granted, it was mid-grade gas, but still.Richahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07004043249918240381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8150679.post-1123263015387031372005-08-05T10:16:00.000-07:002005-08-05T12:17:26.966-07:00Let me begin by apologizing in advance toall of my out-of-state friends. You know, the ones I am about to make fun of.<br /><br />You ever notice that people who don't live someplace tend to give it nicknames or shorten its name? But the people who actually live there don't do it? I don't know what it is, but for some reason, a bunch of my out-of-state friends call California "Cali". Now, I don't know one person who actually lives in California who calls it Cali. It's just not done. They'll use the whole name more often than not, or CA, the state abbreviation, in a pinch. But never Cali.<br /><br />Take San Francisco. No locals or city residents call it "Frisco" (I have met someone from the East Bay who called it Frisco once, but I put that down to a moment of insanity). Usually we just call it the city. San Francisco, sure. SF for short, or even, rarely, San Fran, but never, <em>ever</em>, Frisco.<br /><br />What's up with that? Weird.<br /><br /><strong>Update 08/05/2005 12:15</strong> - Case in point: The Notorious B.I.G.'s "Going Back to Cali". He used both "Cali" and "Frisco" in that song. Where was he from? Wait for it...Brooklyn. I rest my case.Richahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07004043249918240381noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8150679.post-1123127158142847872005-08-03T20:45:00.000-07:002005-08-03T20:45:58.146-07:00Here I come to save the daaaayyy!Well, <a href="http://www.apple.com/mightymouse/">it's about goddamn time</a>.Richahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07004043249918240381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8150679.post-1121751727576079282005-07-18T22:37:00.000-07:002005-07-18T22:42:07.610-07:00Netflix update<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0398712/?fr=c2l0ZT1kZnxteD0yMHxsbT01MDB8dHQ9MXxmYj11fHBuPTB8cT1hc3NhdWx0IG9uIHByZWNpbmN0IDEzfGh0bWw9MXxubT0x;fc=1;ft=6;fm=1">Assault on Precinct 13 (2005)</a>: 4 stars<br /><br />A no-frills action movie (<a href="http://tepumpkin.blogspot.com/2005/05/when-was-last-time-you.html">actually rated R</a>, if you can believe that) that admirably avoids needless theatrics. Beautifully understated performances from Hawke, Fishburne and Byrne.Richahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07004043249918240381noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8150679.post-1121362280652458922005-07-14T10:29:00.000-07:002005-07-16T11:13:40.440-07:00ring ring ring ring ring ring ring banana phoneI am just mean to do this to you, but I predict that you will have <a href="http://deaper.net/flash/badger2.swf">this song</a> stuck in your head for the next week, at least. (Thanks to Arturo for the link.)Richahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07004043249918240381noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8150679.post-1121359092965926392005-07-14T08:28:00.000-07:002005-07-15T09:51:11.966-07:00Stop me if you've heard this one before...So I <a href="http://tepumpkin.blogspot.com/2005/03/this-is-pretty-cool.html">mentioned</a> some time ago that I had kicked off this massive redesign effort to make all my various websites cleaner and more user-friendly. As of this morning, I am mostly done with that effort: <br /><br />I've rewritten my <a href="http://www.ravasthi.name">personal website</a> to be XHTML 1.0 Strict compliant and use CSS positioning for page layout. Same thing for my <a href="http://blog-templates.ravasthi.name">blog templates</a>. <br /><br />In an effort to make my code cleaner and easier to maintain, I did some stylesheet reorganizing, and commented the hell out of my HTML code (particularly by marking closing tags with the ID or class of their opening tags, where applicable).<br /><br />Finally and most importantly, though, I paid attention to three things. Readability, readability, and readability. This is pretty important in and of itself, but especially for my websites, since most of my content tends to be written and rather long-winded. To that end, I paid particular care to font choices. It basically came down to two choices: Verdana for sans-serif fonts, and Georgia for serif fonts. Both are supremely readable and very comfortable to read for long periods of time. Both are, moreover, <a href="http://adminstaff.vassar.edu/tibrown/thesis/screenfaces.html">recommended</a> as <a href="http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=78569">good on-screen font choices</a>. Trebuchet, FYI, is another good sans-serif one.<br /><br />Speaking of fonts, I'd like to note here that font size is another important factor. I rarely use fonts smaller than 9pt, and will usually use 10pt for maximum readability. I admit that in the past I've liked to use smaller fonts for aesthetic reasons, but the amount of time I spend reading online content (and, I cringe to say, my ever-increasing age) has skewed my opinion in favor of what's easiest to read.<br /><br />Another important factor in content readability is, IMO, page width. You never want to keep lengthy written content too wide. It makes it too easy for your eyes to wander away and lose your place in the text. You'll notice that most (well, well-designed ones, anyway) newspaper sites and blogs keep the content width down to around 500 pixels. You'll notice that in all my blog designs, the maximum page width never exceeds 800px, and the actual content width stays somewhere between 400 and 500px.<br /><br />Speaking of dimension, let's not forget line height. Extending line height by as little as 20-25% can make a huge readability difference in long pieces of text. Keeping line height to the standard 1 em can make text look too cramped and make it very difficult to read. To that end, I've made sure that all my blog templates, like Blogger's default templates, use a content line height of 1.1-1.25em.<br /><br />I guess if any of you readers are web design professionals, you know most of this from various books you've read, or just from experience. I'm more of a hobbyist, and I'm sort of putting this together as I go along. So even if you think it goes without saying, I'd like to take the time to mention it. UI design on the web is still, even with ever-increasing attention paid to improving the user experience, on the whole appallingly bad. So here's me doing my little bit to make the (online) world a better place.Richahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07004043249918240381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8150679.post-1121326003244909522005-07-14T00:22:00.000-07:002005-07-14T00:26:43.246-07:00Templates alertFor those of you who haven't been to my <a href="http://blog-templates.ravasthi.name">blog templates</a> site lately, please take note: as of Monday, August 1, 2005, I <strong>will no longer be hosting template images</strong>. From here on in, template users will download a compressed archive containing the template code and the images, and they will be responsible for hosting the images themselves. Existing template users have until the aforementioned deadline to replace their templates with the new format (or at least host the images themselves and update their templates with the new URLs). FYI.Richahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07004043249918240381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8150679.post-1121289558268025262005-07-13T14:09:00.000-07:002005-07-13T14:19:18.270-07:00First, I want you to knowthat I am totally and completely making this up. Out of whole cloth. But you know how in the past few years, like every website on the entire internet has used the blue + orange color combination (witness the <a href="http://www.blogger.com">Blogger homepage</a> or the <a href="http://www.travelocity.com/">Travelocity site</a>, or even the application icon for <a href="http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/">Mozilla Firefox</a>)? I predict that the next big thing in color schemes will be lime green + turquoise. You think I'm nuts, I know, but you'll see. You'll all see, when it's too late. Mwahahahahahaha.Richahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07004043249918240381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8150679.post-1121288440021200772005-07-13T13:59:00.000-07:002005-07-13T14:00:40.030-07:00The title says it all, reallyFrom Gizmodo: <a href="http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/portable-media/sony/bluray-is-good-hddvd-kills-puppies-sez-sony-112359.php">Blu-Ray is Good, HD-DVD Kills Puppies Sez Sony</a>Richahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07004043249918240381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8150679.post-1121109548780672842005-07-11T12:16:00.000-07:002005-07-11T12:19:08.790-07:00This just in: Indian food stops cancer!Well, sort of. According to <a href="http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-07/uotm-psw071105.php">this</a>, curcumin, a spice found in turmeric and curry powders, has been proven in laboratory tests to stop growth of melanoma and other cancers. Guess I know what I'm having for lunch!Richahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07004043249918240381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8150679.post-1120764092167877052005-07-07T12:17:00.000-07:002005-07-07T12:21:32.166-07:00Pretty neatZDNet reports that Google, Hearst and Goldman Sachs <a href="http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1035_22-5777917.html">are investing</a> (approx. $100 million, according to the Wall Street Journal) in Current Communications Group, which offers broadband over power lines. (Via <a href="http://it.slashdot.org/it/05/07/07/1748215.shtml?tid=217&tid=187&tid=230&tid=218">Slashdot</a>)Richahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07004043249918240381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8150679.post-1120763424704350802005-07-07T12:07:00.000-07:002005-07-07T12:10:24.713-07:00The London bombingsHere's InstaPundit's <a href="http://instapundit.com/archives/024085.php">roundup</a> of information on today's <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/07/international/europe/07cnd-explosion.html?ex=1278388800&en=99b1c07e21931adb&ei=5089&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss">London bombings</a>, and one from the <a href="http://online.wsj.com/public/article/0,,SB112074780386479568-Fnj6Lqv_Hf1RxCwVSpb8eG0T4pg_20050806,00.html?mod=blogs">Wall Street Journal</a>.Richahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07004043249918240381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8150679.post-1119939449722632792005-06-27T22:53:00.000-07:002005-06-27T23:17:29.730-07:00I bet you've been wonderingwhy I haven't posted in so long. There's a good reason, and his name is <a href="http://www.leechild.com/">Jack Reacher</a>. Earlier this month, during the first of my sister's weddings, I found myself stuck at the arrivals hall in the international terminal of O'Hare airport, waiting for an incoming relative whose flight kept getting delayed (every 10-15 minutes, for a total of over 4 hours. I am not kidding.). <br /><br />Now, since I was driving, and I thought we'd be in and out quickly, I neglected to bring anything with which to occupy myself. No iPod, no PSP, no books, no nothing. About an hour into my interminable wait, I went upstairs to the departures area, where I reasoned there'd <em>have</em> to be a bookstore. And sure enough, there was. <br /><br />I wasn't expecting to find a book to read, since as some of you may know I mostly read (and can't usually keep a long enough attention span for anything but) sci-fi. I took a look at the bestseller rack, though, just for the hell of it. At number 26 or 27 was a book called <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0440241014/qid=1119938352/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/002-9162368-5606414?v=glance&s=books&n=507846"><em>The Enemy</em></a>, by some guy called Lee Child. All the quotes on the front and back covers bore effusive praise to the tune of: "this guy is the best thriller writer you're not reading...yet", or "he's the next Tom Clancy", etc., etc. <br /><br />The blurb on the back seemed interesting enough, but it had yet to pass the real test. I've learned the hard way, being so picky about writing, that I have to pick up a book and read the first page or two of it to make sure the writing doesn't annoy me before I plunk down the money to buy it. So I cracked it open. Inside, I found a treasure. Brutally spare prose, tight plotting, an absolutely <em>gorgeous</em> mastery of dialogue, and film-like editing. And as simple as that, I was hooked.<br /><br /><em>The Enemy</em> is the eighth (of nine) in a series of stand-alone novels, all featuring a main character named Jack Reacher. As it happened, this book was actually a prequel to all the rest of them, so it was a good place to start. Tonight, I finished reading the last of the books that have been released in paperback, and am waiting on my local library to get a copy of the ninth one (newly released in hardcover) back in so I can read it. Very, very good stuff; highly recommended.Richahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07004043249918240381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8150679.post-1119937593071747922005-06-27T22:44:00.000-07:002005-06-27T22:46:33.073-07:00I've recently posteda couple of <a href="http://homepage.mac.com/ravasthi/blog_templates/">new Blogger templates</a>: <a href="http://homepage.mac.com/ravasthi/blog_templates/deco/deco.html">Deco</a> and <a href="http://homepage.mac.com/ravasthi/blog_templates/retro/retro.html">Retro</a>. Check 'em out!Richahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07004043249918240381noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8150679.post-1119937318837910972005-06-27T22:39:00.000-07:002005-06-27T22:41:58.843-07:00Close, but no cigar.Looks like someone was listening: there's now a <a href="http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/transportation/googlemapswidget.html">Google Maps widget</a> available for Dashboard. Unfortunately, it does not provide for driving directions, just for looking up single locations. Seems to me that's the whole point of maps websites.Richahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07004043249918240381noreply@blogger.com0